by Chase Christian
Paladins were the antonym, created to help defend their raid and party from damage and to provide useful buffs. While much of the original intentions have been diluted via homogenization, paladins are still the ultimate defensive class. Unfortunately, in order to perform our role in the face of constantly changing opponents and venues, our toolbox of abilities has become fairly large. We’ve got a utility spell for nearly every situation, and there are a vast number of situations out there. The key to being an effective paladin is to do your homework and to come prepared.
Get your buffs right
While Cataclysm is halving our Blessing count from four to two, making it incredibly simple to make sure everything is covered, we currently have quite a few different options when it comes to buffing the raid. Blessing of Might only helps physical classes while Blessing of Wisdom is only effective for classes with a mana bar. Blessing of Kings is good for everyone, and Blessing of Sanctuary is really only needed for paladin tanks and groups without a discipline priest around. With so many specific cases for each class, it can be hard to figure out what to buff. If you have enough paladins in the raid to buff all four blessings, then simply coordinate via chat or PallyPower to get all four buffs on the entire raid.
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by Michael Gray
We’re talking about the very, very basics of raiding. These are the fundamental building blocks that will get you into the instance, help you kill trash and finally help you defeat the boss. Most of this stuff will seem like common sense to experienced players. That’s good news; if it’s obvious data, that means you’re already on top of the dynamic. But for others, not every aspect of raiding will be obvious, especially to players for whom WoW is their first MMO.
What is a raid?
World of Warcraft has a dynamic called a “raid group” that allows up to 40 people to join a sort of mega-party. One person is the raid leader, and any number of other people are raid assistants. It’s generally up to each individual raid to decide how it operates, in terms of leadership, loot and organization. Rest assured, there really is no “right way” to run a raid. There are some “good ways” and there are some “not as effective ways,” but no one owns the market in the One True Raiding Organization.
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by Mathew McCurley
Bati has created something that I truly appreciate: easy-to-use, easy-to-set-up, pre-made Grid healer profiles that give you everything you could ask for. The profile set even includes a DPS setup for your off spec, if needed.
An interface for every healer
Oren.1 is the paladin interface, showing all of the pertinent buffs on the target at the bottom of the Grid frame, with built-in timers from the excellent addon OmniCC. Bati is the priest Grid setup, displaying shields, Weakened Soul, Prayer of Mending and other vital priest information right on the Grid frame. Paired with a PoM counter addon, this setup proves very powerful for priests.
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by Chase Christian
Let’s face it, rogues don’t really have any spontaneous abilities to look forward to. Each spec has its own toolbox of cooldowns to use as soon as they’re available, and we can typically predict our actions a few steps out. We’ve been using the combo point system for so long that there’s really nothing that can surprise us. We know how energy works, and a quick look at our buff and debuff timers let us know exactly what the next step is in our priority system.
Rogues and their rotation
The basic model for rogue DPS is the rotation system, which has two core parts. We start by using techniques that generate combo points and then release those combo points in the form of finishers. We have a variety of CP generators that vary by spec, and we have a similar selection of finishers for every situation. The pacing of CP generation provides the necessary amount of DPS ramp-up requirements to ensure that we’re not too powerful in short fights, while also allowing for us to reach our peak DPS when we’re allowed to attack uninterrupted.
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by Rich Maloy
Casual raider? Or not fortunate enough to play a shaman as your main, but instead stuck on another, lesser class? This article is for you. If you need to go out and gear up your shaman from guild alt runs, PUG raids and mucking about in daily dungeons for your two frost emblems, then read on for your gear choices.
From the applications we received over the past few months at Big Crits, it seems that guilds and PUGs alike had a hard time getting past Deathbringer Saurfang — that is, until the bigger ICC buff hit. Now the breaking point is 6/12 ICC, with kills on Festergut and Rotface being commonplace but little experience beyond that available. Taking into consideration how far casual guilds or alt runs can realistically get into ICC, I’ve listed the loot in order of progression, from easy to hard.
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by Chase Christian
I think that holy paladins have been pretty blessed this expansion, pun definitely intended. Our holy tree has been very solid throughout Wrath, and we’ve even got a few flex talents that we can use to pick up Improved Lay on Hands or even Blessed Hands. Our massive healing throughput has also made us one of the healers of choice for Anub’arak and the Lich King on heroic mode and even for bugging out Yogg-Saron’s heroic mode, as well. Our progression throughout Northrend has settled holy paladins into a pretty comfy healing niche. Even with all of the development our class has seen in the past few months, a few questions still remain.
For example, why are we still using the item level 200 Libram of Renewal instead of one of the shiny new librams from the Emblem of Frost vendor? The reason is that our old libram is too strong, and our new librams are poorly designed. Specifically, the Libram of Blinding Light just doesn’t mesh well with our playstyle. It forces us to use Holy Shock on a regular basis to keep it active and only provides extra spellpower. Of all the stats possible, spellpower is probably the one that holy paladins need the least of. What can Blizzard do to get things right the next time around?
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by Joe Perez
This week, we are going to talk about Healing Rain, a new spell obtained when a restoration shaman reaches level 83. When we first received word of the new spells and abilities during the Cataclysm class preview, there were quite a number of people who didn’t know how they felt about this new spell. Would it be good? Would it be useless? Was it really necessary? When the beta was released and the level cap moved to 83, we started to get a small idea of what the spell could do. I’ve been spending the better part of the last couple weeks testing it out in various situations, seeing how it complements the other tools in our healing arsenal.
What is Healing Rain?
Healing Rain is a new restoration shaman healing spell learned at level 83. Here are the stats:
- 46% base mana
- 30-yard range
- 2-second cast time
- 10-second cooldown
- 10-second duration
- Calls forth healing rains to blanket the area targeted by the Shaman, restoring 345 to 409 health to allies in the area every 2 sec. for 10 sec.
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by Brian Wood
While BM has come a long way in the beta, it still has not-yet-implemented talents and not-yet-functional talents. But the main problem with BM is that the pet design pass hasn’t been done yet. BM relies on its pets far more than any other spec, and until we know how the pet design will play out, we are left with big questions in our rotation.
Join me after the cut as we take a look at exactly where BM is right now, why our pets are more important than ever, why big red pet is better than ever, and why we can’t say for certain just what the final BM rotation will look like.
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by Allison Robert
2. The Sword in the Skull
World of Warcraft is steeped pretty firmly in the most basic and primal of fantasy tropes, and the epic quest for a magic weapon is something even a newcomer to the genre can recognize. For better or worse, most of the game’s truly exemplary weapons — the legendaries — have been confined to a very small portion of players at the highest tier of the raid game. If you weren’t in a progression-oriented guild at the time when these weapons made a real difference to a raid, you had no shot at Sulfuras, Thunderfury, Atiesh, the Warglaives of Azzinoth, or Thori’dal, just as you’ve got no shot at Val’anyr or Shadowmourne without a fairly competent raiding guild in Wrath. While this achieves the desired effect — the weapon stays rare and a tantalizing goal for anyone who needs an extra shove in the direction of the game’s truly difficult content — the usual process of building a legendary or waiting for one to drop has a mixed effect at best on players.
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by Daniel Whitcomb
With the latest build having just hit the Cataclysm beta test servers, this seems like a pretty good time to take a quick inventory of the changes, maybe say a few things about the direction that the class is heading thus far in beta. I can tell you right now that some of the latest changes are either confusing or just plain silly, and while some things are looking cool enough, we really are long overdue for another major change patch. However, before we get too hardcore into that discussion, let’s look at the latest changes.
Mastering death knight masteries
Blood Shield Each time you heal yourself via Death Strike, you gain 50% of the amount healed as a damage absorption shield. Absorb increased further by mastery rating.
The blood tree mastery is pretty straightforward and also pretty nicely useful for tanking. Currently, dressed in a random array of Deepholm and Hyjal quest drops, my level 83 death knight is up to an 85 percent shield. Of course, it’s hard to say right now how much mastery endgame death tanks will need or want, but with health totals rising, the absorption shields you create with this mastery probably won’t be too shabby. Plus, it’s an active mastery, which I personally prefer, since it gives you a choice of when and how to use it, at least to a limited extent.
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